


The Whole (Care) Package

by arsenicarcher (Arsenic), hoosierbitch



Series: Prison 'verse [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, White Collar
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-11 11:14:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/arsenicarcher, https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoosierbitch/pseuds/hoosierbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five scenes set in Prison 'verse. This is not going to make sense if you haven't read the previous story, sorry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Whole (Care) Package

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pierrot_dreams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pierrot_dreams/gifts).



> Huge thanks to ihearttwojacks for the beta job. 
> 
> So many, so VERY many hugs to my partner-in-crime hoosierbitch, who did not commit to writing stories at ALL, and was totally willing to pitch in when needed. 
> 
> Written for pierrot_dreams, who was gift-sponsored the "taking care of somebody" square in my original hc_bingo by lady_om to support Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

**1\. Undercover**

A few months after Clint and Phil resolve their communication issues--as Tony and Neal both like to call the clusterfuck that was Clint’s life for about, oh, the entirety of it--Natasha figures out that Clint knows some Russian. It isn’t that Clint was hiding the fact, exactly, but the language feels wrong in his mouth. It’s not a skill he wants to have to use.

Something sets Natasha off, though, and when she’s truly, deeply pissed enough to show it, even in the presence of the team, every other word out of her mouth is a Russian curse word. Clint really doesn’t know what his face looks like by the time she notices, since he’s trying to pretend he’s not there. Natasha won’t hurt him. She _won’t._ And if she tries the others--

She won’t.

He comes out of his panicked musings to a strange silence. The team is looking at him, some with concern, others with confusion. Natasha says, “You speak Russian.”

Clint is tired. They’ve been dicked around by the WSC for days now--whatever finally got to Natasha was just one straw amongst many riding the camel’s back--and so he doesn’t filter what comes out of his mouth. “Only the dirty parts.”

Tony opens his mouth. Clint stiffens and, after a moment, and a fierce glare from pretty much everyone else in the room, he shuts it. Natasha says, “It’s somewhere to start.”

Clint doesn’t have the heart to tell her that the sound of her native language is often what he wakes to in a cold sweat in the dead of the night. Instead, he makes himself learn, makes himself concentrate on her voice, her presence. It helps a little, but Russian is never going to be Clint’s favorite language.

*

Fury pulls Clint to accompany Natasha on a mission to Kazhakstan, because it needs to look like she has some muscle, and Clint is the only person she trusts for that who speaks fluent Russian. Phil has a look on his face like he feels that something is wrong, but can’t figure out what it is. Clint almost tells him. He’d listen, Clint knows he’d listen. But then Natasha would have to go in there with someone she doesn’t trust and Clint can’t do that to her. Sure, she’s known him for the least traumatic part of his life, but in that time, she’s never once failed him when he needed her. Doing it now will be infinitely worse than speaking Russian non-stop for a couple weeks.

His hands and feet ache with pain that no longer really exists. The skin along his spine--which he slowly had completely replaced with grafts-tingles in a way that makes him nauseated. He’s fine, though. He’s been through worse. He’s got this under control.

*

Nat knows something is off with him. She isn’t pushing him about it, which he appreciates, but he can sense it with every word she says to him. They’re all in Russian--words everywhere are in Russian, now, Clint hasn’t heard English in ten days--so Clint has to concentrate too much on staying in the moment to try and head her off.

Underneath his dove and hawk, it’s uncomfortable to swallow, his throat burning dully with bruises that are no longer there, have not been there in some time. The barbed wire is still there, but Steve and Neal made it Clint’s. There’s no reason for his throat to hurt, no reason at all.

The sound of Russian here is ever-so-slightly different than it was in prison. Clint cannot say whether it is an issue of nationality or class or something else, but he can hear the difference. He lives in those tiny shifts in pronunciation, in the knowledge that he is here for Natasha. Natasha, who brought him a fork without mocking him the first time she met him, who will push him to his breaking point in training to make him his best, and not ever say a word about how many pieces he splinters into.

He keeps his mind on those things, and between the two of them, they cut off a weapons supply chain in the middle, and hand over the two disparate, chaotic ends to strike teams, ready to pounce. Clint says, “Can we go home?”

He means to ask it in Russian, but he doesn’t, and Natasha, when she answers, says in English, “Yes.”

*

They check in at HQ first, because that’s how these things work. Medical cleans up whatever cuts and scrapes they’ve incurred while escaping--things went remarkably well up until the very last minute--and sends them on their way. Clint knows Phil isn’t on base. If he were, he’d have been in medical by now, so Clint takes the first car he can commandeer back to the tower.

Phil looks up when he walks in the room and says, “Fury must’ve forgotten to mention you’d gotten back.”

“Mm,” Clint agrees quietly. “JARVIS?”

Phil looks sheepish for a second. “I might have had a come-to-Jesus talk with Tony about invasion of privacy a little while back. He’s still towing the line.”

Clint’s kind of sad he wasn’t there to see it. It’s hotter than it should be when Phil is drawing the line with Tony. He shrugs and says, “Hi honey. I’m home.”

Phil looks him over, even as he’s moving toward him. “Want to sleep for a couple of days?”

“Maybe three,” Clint admits, even as he knows that sleep will be a battle to sustain once he’s down. He’s spent nearly a month dozing, aware he can’t afford the nightmares. Here, though, he’s safe. His mind will give in.

Phil has stepped into his space now, and everything about it is right, the sense of calm, of love and quiet. Phil’s forehead tips to touch Clint's, and his hand comes up to gently cup the back of Clint’s neck, caress a finger over the side.

Reality slips. Clint doesn’t even catch it happening, just falls into a place and time where hands on his throat were a threat. He goes limp, pliant. Fighting will just make it worse and he doesn’t need any worse.

There’s noise in the background, someone saying his name and Clint should pay attention. Missing what he’s supposed to do will end with punishment. He tries to make sense of things, he really does, but it’s as if his brain can’t translate the sounds it is hearing. He goes to his knees. It’s a pretty safe bet. Almost everyone likes him on his knees.

There’s someone in front of him, someone waiting. Maybe if he can make him happy, maybe then he won’t be choked. He’s so hungry. He wants to be able to eat whatever Gretchenko will allow. 

He’s bringing his hands up to work on the belt at his eye-level when something stings at a spot on his bicep and everything fuzzes, fading to black.

*

It takes Clint a few minutes to piece things together when he wakes. Nightmares are something he’s used to, has accepted that they are not going to go away. It’s been a while, though, since he’s had a full-blown dissociative episode.

The door of the bedroom is open, so he can hear voices from down the hall. Neal’s here. Clint pads down to the kitchen-breakfast nook area where they’re sharing pizza and beers. Sara’s with Neal which is interesting. Clint’s only met her once or twice. 

Phil stands up, “Hey babe.”

“Started without me,” Clint grumbles.

“Nope,” Neal says, walking over to the oven, where there’s an entire large hamburger and green pepper pizza still waiting, keeping hot.

Clint eyes one of the beers, but decides against it, going with a huge glass of water and a mug of orange juice instead. He pulls his seat immediately next to Phil’s and takes a few bites before saying, “So, that happened.”

Sara takes a sip of her beer, looks between the three men, and stands. “I’m gonna go find Pepper and--”

But Clint’s got his focus on Neal, who’s looking anywhere but at Sara and so Clint says, “Maybe you should stay. If you’re not squeamish.”

Sara shakes her head. “Not so much.”

Clint gestures at the seat she’s just abandoned. Neal wouldn’t have brought her here if she couldn’t be trusted. Clint finds it weird that he knows that, but he does. Phil’s hand is rubbing at his lower back. Clint presses into it, takes a few more slow bites of pizza and says, “I possibly wasn’t as forthcoming about my issues with Russian as I maybe should have been.”

Phil takes that in. “Tasha said you were on edge the whole time. Not your normal on edge, either.”

Clint sighs and rethinks the beer. Once again, he decides against it. He sips at the water, trying to keep nausea at bay. “My protector in prison was Russian. It’s just an association thing.”

Phil looks like he swallowed something disgusting. “Please don’t ever use the term ‘protector’ in that context again.”

Clint puts down his pizza and curls completely into Phil. “Sorry about earlier. Didn’t mean to freak you out.”

Neal raises an eyebrow at Clint. Clint sighs. “I know, I don’t have to be sorry. But he did kind of do something he’s had permission for since we started touching and I took a trip to lala land, so.”

Sara is watching the three of them, Neal most of all, her eyes dark and compassionate, but not questioning. In her own way, she reminds him a little of Phil.

Phil kisses the top of his head. “Eat the pizza. You look like Jack Skellington. Did Tasha not make you eat?”

Clint grins, ignoring that last part. Nat can stand up for herself. It is not quite fall yet, but it will be soon, and Phil will sit and patiently watch all of Clint’s favorite Halloween movies with him, even help put together a party for the house. He cants his head up for a kiss and he can see the banked sorrow and rage in Phil’s eyes, but it's overidden entirely by devotion. Phil kisses him lightly, then brings pizza to Clint’s mouth before he can get it closed.

**2\. Prison**

Out of the group of them--El and Neal, Coulson and Clint--Clint's the only one who's never visited a prison before. Not from the outside, not as someone who can leave when he wants to. The others don't seem to realize that. Or at least no one brings it up.

The process of getting from the Avengers Tower to the visiting room is mostly a blur for Clint. He remembers the fake smile he musters up when Phil asks if he's okay, he remembers every second of the body search the guards did when his hands and feet set off the metal detector. They don't strip him of his clothes but they pat every single part of him down, even though Coulson's got some sort of pass or paperwork that's supposed to get Clint through this. It had never even occurred to Clint that it would be a problem. 

After the guards let them sign in Coulson presses against Clint's side and asks, "Can I hold your hand?" 

It's something he hasn't asked for permission for in months. Clint doesn't say anything but he reaches out and clutches Phil's hand as gently as he can with nervous power scorching through his metal bones.

*

The guards let them in one by one. Clint's last, since he's got the weakest claim on Peter's time. (He asks to go last, in any case, and no one tells him _No_.)

Clint gives Peter a small half-wave when he walks into the visiting room. Peter's one of many cons sitting at plastic picnic tables scattered across the room. Neal hadn't been able to pull enough strings yet to get Peter a private visit. 

Peter waves back and gives Clint a smile that looks as fake as Clint feels. "So," Clint says, sitting down and instinctually hunching his shoulders. "Prison, huh?" 

Peter laughs and Clint glances at the guards around the room but none of them seem to want to move enough to shut him up. Peter looks washed out under the harsh light. Maybe the rest of them had felt as helpless as Clint feels when Peter's laugh dies away and it's just silence and uncomfortable truths between them. 

"They treating you okay?" Clint asks. 

"I think Hughes put the fear of god in everyone individually. Sometimes I feel like I'm at a spa." Peter sighs when Clint doesn't play along. "One guy tried to bother me." Peter pulls his right hand out from under the table and shows Clint his bruised knuckles. "No one else seems eager to try." Clint's remade hands move gracefully as he turns Peter's hand over, examining the flesh and fragile bones. "Don't tell the others. None of them noticed and I don't want them to worry." 

"You always made me tell you the truth," Clint counters, because Peter's basically a human lie detector and between him and Neal Clint hadn't been able to get away with _I'm doing fine_ very often. 

"Yeah, well. Maybe I shouldn't have." 

Clint shifts in his chair. He's never felt as close to Peter as he does to the others and he hates that this is what's going to bring them together. "It's the boredom that gets me more than anything," Peter tells him. "I got some books from the library, and El got me a book of crosswords, but..." 

"There are a lot of hours in the day," Clint finishes. Peter nods and gives him a relieved half-smile. "I've heard it helps to focus on what you're going to do when you get out," Clint tells him. "The other cons used to talk about what they were going back to. The people who were waiting for them. So you can concentrate on that--on El, and Neal, and your job, once they clear you of charges." 

Peter stares at him for too long. "You had people waiting for you, too," he says slowly. "You had me, and El, and Neal. At the very least you had to know Neal was waiting." 

Clint shrugs with one shoulder. "Maybe. I think I might know that now, but back then I--I didn't know how to hope for something as big as that."

Peter nods and lets Clint's silence stand. "Don't tell the others," Peter says, his voice sounding heavy and secret, "but sometimes I worry that they're not going to be able to get me out. The evidence is pretty damning, and there are a lot of powerful people who would do better with me behind bars. And I just..." He laughs, a sad little mock-chuckle. "I don't know how you did it for as long as you did. I don't know if I can do this."

Clint's not used to people thinking that he's strong, and he definitely wasn't expecting Peter to think that Clint could do something that Peter can't. Or maybe it's just that Clint is better at getting hurt; maybe he's better at obeying, keeping his head low, submitting. After all, he's basically been training for it since birth. 

"You'll be okay," he says, because that's what Elizabeth had told him a couple of times during her visits, and it had been such a lovely lie that it always made Clint feel better. It's true, though, for Peter. 

Eventually the guards call time and he shakes Peter's hand to say goodbye. Hugging's not allowed, but palm to palm is better than nothing. Clint lets Peter be the one to pull away first. 

He goes back into the waiting room. The rest of them are squeezed onto a bench by the vending machines. All of them smile when they see Clint. 

They'll get Peter out. All of them, together, they'll get Peter out.

*

He makes Peter a care package of everything he'd wished he'd had for himself. Cookies, of course, but also scented soap and little bottles of good shampoo. Magazines, more crossword puzzles, a blank notebook and a handful of cheap Bic pens.

He checks with Neal (three times, which was maybe excessive, but this was _important_ ) to make sure that enough money had been moved into Peter's discretionary account. He'd be able to buy food at the commissary, chocolate or cigarettes or other things he could use or trade. 

Every day Clint hunts down a different teammate and writes a letter with them. Clint sits with his pen and one of the dozen hand-drawn cards Neal made for him when he asked, and acts as a scribe for him. 

Bruce rambles about his work (he has to spell out about half the words he uses) and then makes Clint black some of it out with a permanent marker when he remember's it's confidential. He also talks about a time in India when someone had shared a meal with him. The Hulk wouldn't let Bruce die, but couldn't stop Bruce from living with starvation. 

Pepper keeps Peter up to date on the business and financial world. She says, "Lots of love, Pepper," when he wraps it up and scrawls down that final line. 

Tony's just says, "If you want attention, there are better ways of getting it. No love at all, Tony. P.S. Get the heck out of there before Neal's puppy dog eyes get classified as a lethal weapon."

Natasha recites her favorite poem. It takes her a while, because she learned it in Russian, and Clint gets to help her choose new words for it. She signs it, "Stay strong," and presses a perfect red kiss on the envelope.

Thor doesn't quite seem to understand where Peter is, or what Clint's doing. He grabs the letter from Clint's hands and draws a complicated design on the card that looks partly like a compass on steroids; it seems to shift its shape the more you stare at it. Thor writes his name on the back with a flourish. Then he adds a smiley face.

When Clint runs out of other people's platitudes he writes letters of his own. They're all short, and probably stupid, but he remembers how the other cons had torn open their mail like they were starving for words from the outside. He tells Peter that Neal got him ice cream for his birthday once. He tells Peter about the birds he and Coulson have seen on their walks. He tells Peter that ever since the circus he's hated the smell of popcorn and cotton candy. 

He reminds Peter that, once he gets out, he'll be able to pick his own clothes and make his own food and be in control of his own time. _There are so many little freedoms_ , Clint writes slowly, _ones you never noticed before, that will become so precious to you._

*

That night he tells Coulson about the letters. Probably Coulson had already known, since he's the smartest person Clint's ever met (with the possible exception of Jane Foster).

"You seem distant," Phil says. Clint's resting his head on Phil's chest; he rises and falls with Phil's breath. "Is there anything I can do to help?" 

Clint trails his fingers through Phil's chest hair. "I don't know if you can or not. And that's kind of the problem." Phil, as always, waits patiently for Clint to decide how to say what he wants to get out next. "If somebody like Peter can get sent away, then who's to say that the same thing won't happen again to me?" 

Coulson's got an arm wrapped around Clint's back and he squeezes him in tight for a long moment, long enough to catch Clint's shaky exhale and even it out.

"I won't make you any promises that I might not be able to keep," Phil says, when Clint's eyes have begun to droop. "I can't promise that nothing will ever go wrong. But I promise you that we will get Peter out. And I promise you that if this happens to you, I, and every single member of your team, and the entire white collar crime division, and Nick Fucking Fury, will get you out." 

It's not really enough, but it's all Coulson has to offer, and it's something Clint can believe.

**3\. Alive**

Loki finds Clint’s soft spots easily. Under the thick layer of compulsion and only-slightly-thinner patina of exhaustion and hunger, Clint questions whether this really is all he’s good for: something to be used. 

Loki takes voyeuristic pleasure in making Clint tell him about prison. He doesn’t need to know for his purposes, but that doesn’t stop him from making Clint remember everything, even the things he’d locked away.

When Natasha brings him back by way of concussion, he’s not really sure the seven years of his life between the present and prison have happened. He’s not sure of anything, except his need to be with his team, to stop Loki. If he’s going to be a tool, he’ll be one for good given the chance.

He spends most of the battle on auto-pilot. It’s familiar, being the eyes for these five people. There’s a voice missing in his ear, a voice that never pushes him past his breaking point, like the one that’s been in his head for the past few days. Clint tunes everything out except the need to save his friends, and maybe, with them, the world.

*

Tony takes them to shawarma afterward because Clint likes shawarma, it doesn’t have any negative connotations, and they’re all silently but obviously freaking out over him a bit. Thor in particular can barely find words. Clint wants to curl into him like he does sometimes on team nights, having long since found that Thor is a safe place to rest. He wants to say, “I know a thing or two about brothers,” and just let things be.

More than that, though, he wants to see Phil. He’s so hungry he’s nauseated with it, so he makes himself take a slow first bite and chew. Then he mumbles, “Why wasn’t Phil handling?”

There’s a strange, _wrong_ silence for a moment. Clint meets Natasha’s eyes and knows, but he grounds out, “Say it.”

Natasha’s eyes are wide with pain. “Loki--”

“On the ‘Carrier?” Clint asks.

“Clint,” she says softly. And Clint, who survived his father and the circus and prison and the streets afterward, quietly, completely, shatters into a million sharp-edged fragments.

*

He wakes in the tower’s medical facility. He’s hooked up to a number of machines and IVs. Physically, he thinks this might be what it means to feel human again. Bruce pops his head around the door and says, “Oh, you’re awake, that’s good.”

 _Is it?_ Clint doesn’t ask Bruce. 

Bruce seems to receive the message, all the same. He says, “We’ve got you, Clint. And we need you.”

Clint wants to ask ‘for what?’ but he isn’t sure he’d like the answer.

*

Clint loses track of time. At some point, Bruce unhooks him from the machines. Natasha makes him stay with her, then Neal steals him away from the tower for a while, under the theory that putting a little space between him and all the places that were his and Phil’s might be a good idea.

Clint spends the three nights he’s there on the balcony, not wanting to wake Neal with his pacing. In the mornings, Neal comes and holds Clint to him, careful in the way he’s always been with that, and says, “Stay with me. I know--I know I didn’t so much, back with Kate. And that this...this is more complicated and more--”

Clint shakes his head. Pain is relative. If he went around comparing everyone’s experiences to his, he doubts he’d have any compassion, and that isn’t who he wants to be. He says truthfully, “I’m trying. He’d want me to try.”

Neal nods, and presses his forehead to Clint’s. “My turn to hold you until you can stand again, all right?”

As far as Clint’s concerned, it’s almost always been Neal’s turn, but he agrees by pressing his forehead further in anyway.

*

Fury calls and says, “I need you to come,” but he says it like a request, like he’s uncertain of Clint’s compliance, rather than a command. Phil wouldn’t want him to all of a sudden be a dick to the Director, so even though everything feels off, Clint says, “I’ll see you in ten.”

Fury’s waiting for him at the entrance, which is...odd. Clint probably lets it show. He’s too tired for obfuscation right now. Fury says, “Follow me.”

They go places in HQ even Clint, with his ceiling exploration habits, has never seen. He hears Phil before he sees him. Hears Phil begging for death.

*

Clint does not understand what he’s seeing at first. There’s a spider poking rapidly at Phil’s brain and Phil is pleading, hysterical in a way Clint has never seen him. He says, “Phil is dead,” like maybe there’s an explanation for this, maybe that’s not his life partner on that table. At the same time, because he is selfish and terrible, a tiny part of Clint hopes he is not misunderstanding.

Fury says, “Was. For a little over five days, until we found the right tech. But he--”

Clint stops listening at the part where, whatever Fury did, he got Phil back. He should doubt, he knows. But SHIELD rebuilt his hands and feet. This doesn’t seem as crazy as it probably otherwise would. And he remembers, vividly, what it felt like waking that first time, thinks, _I know, babe, I know._ He crosses the room and pulls Phil’s hand into his. There’s a startled break in the pleading. Clint uses it to say, “Hey. Hey, gorgeous.”

“Clint,” Phil says, a little breathily. “ _Clint._ They--Loki didn’t--”

Clint climbs cautiously onto the medical platform and curls himself around Phil, who is still shaking and crying from the pain, but at least quiet for the moment. “Tasha got me back. Only you weren’t there and I couldn’t--Please, Phil. Please don’t give up. I can barely remember how to breathe when you’re not around.”

He sounds stupid and sappy and he knows it and really couldn’t give a shit less. Especially when Phil tightens the grip on Clint’s hand and asks, “Stay, please?”

His voice wavers and cracks with the pain, and Clint tells him, “Not even the Hulk could move me.”

*

It’s a month after the procedure is finished that they can unhook Phil from the machines reminding his body how to do simple things, like take sustenance. Clint helps Phil sit up, and holds him when the motion proves dizziness-inducing. He says, “I’ve got you.” Then, thinking of Neal, “My turn to hold you while you heal up.”

Phil laughs shakily against Clint’s shoulder and says, “You just never realize when you’re the one doing the heavy lifting.”

*

There are things missing. Phil can’t remember how to disassemble a gun, something Clint has seen him do in three seconds flat on numerous occasions. He can’t remember the names of any of his earlier recruits, when his head used to be like a ledger in those regards. He can’t remember how to swim.

What he can remember is every date he and Clint have ever been on. Clint knows, because Phil has been checking to make sure. He remembers the stories Clint has told him, good and bad. He remembers what Clint likes and doesn’t like.

Phil grins one afternoon. Clint is making him take a nap, but he’s lying down with him so that if the nightmares come, he will be there. Clint asks, “Something funny?”

Phil shakes his head. “No. No, just glad I remember all the important stuff.”

**4\. Patroclus**

It takes Clint a long time to realize that everyone on the team is a little bit broken. Coulson says that no one gets to be as strong as the team is without having a little extra motivation, and maybe that's true, but it also means that everyone has their weaknesses. Achilles heels waiting to be cut. 

Tony demands attention with the bravado of a man hiding how desperately afraid he is of being alone. Tony doesn’t have any family photos hung up in his own home. He’s more comfortable kissing Pepper than he is hugging her. Sex is different from intimacy; Clint’s been learning that lately. 

Natasha's the best at pretending, and Clint's never seen her when her shields are less than perfectly erected, but she tells him she understands what he's going through and she says it like someone else who's known the terror and pain and helplessness that seep through Clint's dreams like an oil spill. 

Bruce makes everyone food, and always makes too much. He's always got extra granola bars for Clint, he leaves cookies on the kitchen counter, puts frozen soups and chili in tupperware containers in the freezer. Bruce has starved before. (Bruce also gets depressed. He calls it being low, but Clint's been in therapy long enough to call it by its real name. When Bruce gets low he leaves his lab and sits in the common space, hunched like he's got the Hulk's weight on his shoulders, like he can't bring himself to even move.)

Sometimes Thor goes quiet and stares at the sky and when he finally speaks, he doesn't sound like a god, he just sounds young, and tired, and homesick. 

Steve tells Clint he takes showers instead of baths because he's afraid of water. He wears extra sweaters even in the summer. Steve tells Clint he went from war to war with barely a break in between. Steve's almost as young as Clint and he's lost more friends than Clint's ever had. When Steve curls himself in the window seat, wrapped in an extra blanket, Clint will bring him his sketchbook and charcoal and keep watch while Steve draws or naps or talks about Peggy, and Bucky Barnes, and what it feels like to freeze to death.

*

Phil says that at some point they’ve all been hurt. They’re all grown now, adults who have adapted like trees do when there’s metal or wire something foreign in their way; they adapt because it’s that or die. (Everyone but Bruce has chosen to live. The Hulk made Bruce’s choice for him and Bruce is slowly getting used to it.)

So Clint comes up with a plan. 

He’s not the best at plans, since that’s Phil’s job, so he enlists Tony’s help. 

"Wanna be partners in crime?"

Tony looks up at Clint, protective goggles on his forehead, the only clean skin on his face are the circles they left around his eyes. "I have literally been waiting my entire life for someone to ask me that question."

Clint smiles, because that's what he'd thought, and he likes getting things right. He tosses Tony a baggie of dried cranberries that he'd picked up at a farmer's market with Phil and scooches himself onto a moderately clear part of Stark's tabletop.

"What's the plan, Robin?"

"A) I'm Batman, and B) the plan is: pinic."

"...is that a code name for the real plan?"

"No, it's the real plan."

"I'm demoting you to the Robin from the Clooney Batman movies.

"The others like getting presents, right? And they like surprises, so I thought I'd do something nice. Something that none of us have done before. So it wouldn't be just me feeling like the idiot."

"I don't think I've actually been on a picnic," Stark says. He scratches his head and the goggles fall back over his face.

"I know. I just figure--the others will be happy because you and me, we're doing something nice for them, which means we care about them, and you--" Clint gives himself a minute to sort his words into the right order. "You like to make the nice things for everyone. This way it'll be fun for you, too."

Tony's goggles are blocking Clint's view of Tony's eyes, so he doesn't know whether or not his words missed their target.

"I hope you don't decide to take over the world," Tony says, turning back to his work. "Coulson could bring every world government to their knees, and you'd bat your eyes at them and have them playing nice within minutes." Clint grins, trying that on for size: Clint Barton, who can make people happy without submitting to them or letting them hurt him.

"You're lucky me and Coulson are too busy having sex to hatch any despotic plans more complicated than buying flavored lubes and padded handcuffs."

Tony laughs at that, a real, not-pretending-for-company laugh, and Clint feels something warm burn in his stomach. "So you're going to help with the plan?"

"JARVIS, pull up pictures of picnics, look through the DNR for nice, secluded spots, check with Emeril for good food to bring along, and see if Martha Stewart's got a guide to good picnic etiquette." Clint grins, delighted, as screens upon screens flicker up out of nowhere and scroll around them.

"I've sent an email to Mr. Lagasse. Mrs. Stewart says to fuck off, but she also says that wicker picnic baskets can't help but set the mood, and to avoid candles at all costs because you don't want to singe your linen napkins."

"Love that woman," Tony says dreamily. "All right, squirt. We got a time frame?"

"Next Sunday. Coulson takes off most of his Sundays right now, and I know Thor's going to be in town with Jane."

Tony nods. "A picnic with Thor-without-Jane would feel like a wake."

"That man could turn a drinking song to a dirge in about a second if her name got mentioned."

Tony grins in acknowledgment but says, “Pepp’ll still be out of the country.”

Clint knows. He’s careful not to let his shrug seem like it doesn’t matter, he doesn’t care. He does. “I figure that gives us an excuse to plan our next surprise. Something she’d like best.”

Tony goes still for a moment and when he draws in a breath, it’s a little shaky. All the same, his voice is even when he says, "I call dibs on getting supplies and securing transportation and a location. You get to be crazy person wrangler."

Clint shakes one of Tony's greasy hands and smiles.

*

Tony lures Bruce and Steve by saying that he’s going upstate to pick up a new chemical combination from Hank McCoy that’ll boost the suit’s repulsors by 7%. Bruce and Jane come along because they’re huge fangirls for Hank, and Steve goes because he always expects there to be collateral damage when the others get that excited about Science.

Clint gives Natasha and Phil invitations, because he doesn’t want to trick them. He’s worked too hard to gain Natasha’s trust to subvert it in any way, and he’s _crap_ at lying to Phil. The invitations are written in a code that’s nearly impossible to sort out, and all it provides is the longitude and latitude, but Clint knows they’ll be there. 

Thor’s the easiest: Clint tells him that he wants to go flying, Thor grabs his hammer, and Clint laughs with the wind and clouds freezing his exposed skin, making him feel as free as the birds he loves to watch. He navigates them towards the field. Lola’s already there, Phil leaning against the hood and Natasha walking a perimeter around it, guns already out. 

Clint asks Thor to circle around for a bit. They land once Tony’s car pulls up (Tony brakes with a shower of dust that falls just short of hitting Lola. Tony likes pushing people’s buttons but he’s not suicidal. Not right now, anyway.). 

When they land, Clint says, “Surprise!” 

Everyone stares at him. Thor says, “Hooray?” 

Steve puts on his Captain face and says, “Explain.” 

Clint fidgets. “We, uh--I mean, I figured--look, I know this is stupid, and you probably hate surprises, and it didn’t really need to be a surprise in the first place, but I just--”

“He’s throwing you a picnic,” Tony interrupts. 

Clint forces himself to look up from the ground and meet Phil’s eyes. Phil’s smiling, but he still looks confused. 

“None of us got to do much normal stuff growing up,” Clint mumbles. “Except for maybe Thor, but he did normal Asgardian stuff, not human stuff, and I thought...maybe we could just do it now.” 

“So you thought we should all go on a picnic,” Natasha says. Her voice is closed off and Clint repeats his mantra, _They’re not going to hurt me, they’re not going to hurt me_ , until she says, “Thank you.” 

Tony takes over after that. He gets the blanket (red and white squares, because when they’d Googled picnics it had seemed like a necessity) and three overflowing picnic baskets, because between the eight of them they can put away a hell of a lot of food. 

They eat, and throw food at each other, and Phil weaves Tasha a crown of flowers that she gives to Thor, who somehow manages to make dandelions look regal. Clint can feel a bit of sunburn starting to flush his cheeks and the tip of his nose when Phil (who had laid down with his head in Clint’s lap after he finished with the flowers) says, “This was a great idea.” 

Clint looks at his team ( _his team_ , who needs and trusts and wants him) and smiles. 

**5\. Rock-a-bye**

“What’s your opinion on babies?” Natasha asks one afternoon. There has been no lead up to this question. In fact, the moment before they were debating the deeply important issue of ice hockey versus curling. Clint doesn’t actually know that much about curling, but he takes up for it, since it kind of seems like a sport that needs someone to defend it.

Clint blinks and comes up with, “They’re small?”

Natasha laughs a little. “Surely we know someone who know’s _something_ useful about babies. I’m not having JARVIS raise my kid on knowledge gained from the internet and compiled into a logical course of action.”

Clint isn’t sure what to say to that for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which is that Natasha sounds kind of scared, which he’s never heard before. Also, _baby??_ After a moment he comes up with, “Diana has a kid. Neal’s co-worker.”

Natasha nods slowly. “Right. She chose to have one.”

Clint tilts his head. He’s never taken Natasha for someone who wouldn’t swallow a morning-after pill or go to a clinic if that was what she thought best. Her smile in response is a little too sharp. “Every doctor, _every single one_ has always told me there’s too much damage, from the drugs, from torture, from whatever.”

Clint chews the side of his cheek. “It’s kind of a miracle then, I guess.”

Natasha says, “I don’t believe in miracles.”

“I’m not dead on the streets, I can shoot a bow again, and run and flip and fucking _dance_ if I want to. Phil’s alive, and so are Steve and Bucky, Tash. That’s like refusing to believe in chocolate or cotton, just because they’re good things.”

“Assuming chocolate and cotton don’t continue to exist based on my refusal to believe in them.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he tells her.

“I know,” she admits. Her hand goes to her abdomen. “But neither does this.”

*

Diana starts coming over with Theo and it turns out Bucky is really good with babies. Steve seems completely unsurprised by this, and Natasha is, as a rule, never surprised. Except, evidently, by impossible pregnancies, which Clint is willing to give her.

Steve, for his part, is predictably earnest about learning everything. Natasha watches both him and Bucky with what Clint can only categorize as uncertainty. Clint cannot tell if it’s about the baby, or about the fact that they’re going to help her. Clint often thinks Steve and Bucky could find a way to both legally marry Natasha and she still wouldn’t be completely sure why they keep her. It’s a feeling he can sympathize with all too well.

The first few times Clint helps with Theo, the only thing he feels is the terror of messing up, hurting Theo, not being good enough to be trusted with Natasha’s unborn child. Then, somewhere around the fifth time, Theo vomits down the back of Clint’s shirt. It’s gross, but it settles something in Clint and as Diana is coming over, apologizing, Clint just says, “I got this, you relax.”

*

Natasha goes in the field until her seventh month. There’s a good two week period where Steve and Bucky aren’t talking to her over the situation, but it’s notable that Steve never pulls rank, the way he could. It is probably for that reason Natasha stops assembling while she can still walk at a decent pace.

Sondra Marcheline Buchanan-Rogers eventually has to be induced because she is happy right where she is, thanks, and has no intention of leaving. Natasha asks Clint to be there, just in case Bucky or Steve, who can both handle having their hands squeezed by her--at least one hand--does something like freak out, and she needs another bionic set of limbs. That’s how she explains it to him, but Clint knows what it’s like to not want to ask something of someone else.

Natasha curses _a lot_ in Russian, snarling and pissed through most of it. Clint thinks vaguely that he should be scared, but he’s too concerned with what’s happening in the moment, the way Steve seems grateful for a hand at his back, and how bad Bucky is at distracting Natasha.

When Natasha is given the baby, she stares down at Sondra as though she’s unsure of what to do with her. After a long moment, she kisses Sondra’s forehead and says, “Hi.”

Sondra yawns without opening her eyes. It’s the coolest thing Clint has ever seen.

*

Clint is Sondra’s _de facto_ babysitter for when her parents need a night out, so he tends to get her at least once a month or so. He loves her with a strange, blind passion that he can’t explain from the beginning. Then she learns to smile, and Clint is _fucked._

Sondra spends the night on Phil and Clint’s floor when Clint is sitting. Phil is a little better at pretending Sondra hasn’t got him, hook, line and sinker, but only a little. Every time Natasha or one of her boys comes to reclaim their child, Clint feels an urge to fight them for her, which is ridiculous. Phil seems to understand, though, because he’ll stand behind Clint afterward, chin on Clint’s shoulder and murmur, “All right,” like both a question and a statement.

One of those mornings, when Clint is even less inclined to disengage than usual, Phil asks softly, “Is it just Sondra, or is that something you want?”

It takes Clint a long minute to understand. When it clicks he says, “I--I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it. She came and I loved her.”

“Mm,” Phil agrees. “You’re exceptional at being happy with what you have. But if you could have one we didn’t have to give back, would you?”

“Like adoption?” Clint asks.

“If you want,” Phil says.

Clint has a brief but intense emotive memory of his years in the orphanage, of being filtered through foster homes, of how badly he’d wanted someone to keep him, to love him. Clint has to clear his throat to say, “I want.”

“Good,” Phil mumbles, and Clint can feel his smile against the skin of Clint’s neck. “Then we shall have.”


End file.
